


Ca'tra Aayhani

by Starofwinter



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Fighter Pilots, Grief/Mourning, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 10:29:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13165044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starofwinter/pseuds/Starofwinter
Summary: The stars remember them.





	Ca'tra Aayhani

“Ca’tra aayhani.”  The pilots all salute, toasting as they huddle together at the bar.  The stars will always remember and celebrate them.  They’re stars first, and they’ll go back to the stars when they die, whether they’re shot down or scattered across a starfield.  

Everyone jokes, sometimes, about pilots having a cushy job - sitting back, letting their ship do all the work, not getting injured on the job - but it’s just light-hearted jokes to hide the very real danger.  Sure, pilots get injured on the job a lot less, but that’s because there’s not a whole lot of room for injury when you’re one good shot away from a fast death in the vacuum of space or a slower one trapped in the burning wreckage of your ship.

Pilots have a reputation for cutting loose - more than any of their brothers - when they’re off-duty.  Most of the officers leave them to it, they deserve to blow off a little steam, with the risks they take.  When you’re never sure whether it’s your last day in the galaxy, you tend to work hard and play harder, grabbing life by the sack just to make sure you get everything out of it you can.

There’s nobody that understands all that like another pilot, and they tend to stick together, because they’re the only ones that really  _ get _ each other.  It’s hard to relate to the men on the ground, and hard for the ground-pounders to relate to their brothers in the sky.  It’s nothing against either of them, just different experiences.  They mingle, but at the end of the day, they go back to their own, because only another pilot  _ understands _ .  

They mourn each other because no one else really knows them well enough to remember, except the stars.  

**Author's Note:**

> Ca'tra - stars  
> aay'han - bittersweet moment of mourning and celebration


End file.
